For second time this week, police break up major international drug network with Vancouver links

Police guide a vehicle as it arrives at the SPVM north-end police headquarters in Montreal on Thursday, November 1, 2012. Several police agencies targeted a vast drug network across Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia.

Photograph by: Dario Ayala
, Montreal Gazette

For a second time this week, police have broken up a major international drug network with links to Vancouver that was importing a tonne of cocaine a month. On Friday, Niagara Regional Police announced that a Vancouver man named Mohamed Reza Amin Torabi was one of six people charged in connection with the cross-border cocaine smuggling operation. Amin Torabi, 49, was picked up by Vancouver Police Thursday and remains in custody in B.C. on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to traffic and working for a criminal organization. He is due to appear in Vancouver Provincial Court November 7.

Also charged in the Niagara case is Lower Mainland native Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil, who is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant. Just a day earlier, the Surete du Quebec said Alkhalil was also wanted in a major drug smuggling operation in that province headed by gangsters from B.C. linked to the Hells Angels. More than 100 people have been charged so far. And Alkhalil, 25, was also identified by Chief Officer Dan Malo, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, as one of the people behind a bloody gang war in B.C. that has left dozens wounded and dead in the last two years. Alkhalil grew up in Surrey where an elder brother was shot to death in 2001. Another brother was killed in the Loft Six nightclub shooting in 2004. Niagara police S. Sgt. Shawn Clarkson said Friday that Amin Torabi was identified as a suspect in the drug ring after five people were arrested last May in a related project. He said the Vancouver man "was identified as a conspirator with [alleged gang kingpin Nicola] Nero and some of the others charged." Niagara police are planning to bring Amin Torabi to Ontario to face the charges, Amin Torabi has no criminal record in B.C., according to the online court data base. He has a registered loan for a BMW which lists his address as a Homer Street condo in Vancouver. Niagara Police described the drug gang as "a highly sophisticated international criminal organization with solid roots to traditional organized crime." The gang was moving up to 400 kilos of cocaine a week from Mexico, through the U.S. and then into Canada where it was widely distributed. Niagara Regional Police Chief Jeff McGuire said his agency worked closely with law enforcement partners on both sides of the border"to deliver a major blow to this dangerous criminal network of drug producers and traffickers." "This investigation is part of our combined, ongoing efforts to disrupt supply chains of drugs before they can be dealt on the streets and in our communities," he said. Also charged is Nicola Nero, who is currently in jail in Kingston, as well as Ontario residents Alfonso Inclima, Nebojsa (Nasho) Dronjak, Tawnya Del Ben Fletcher and Martino Caputo. Caputo has not yet been located by police. kbolan@vancouversun.comread my blog at vancouversun.com/therealscoop follow me: twitter.com/kbolan

Police guide a vehicle as it arrives at the SPVM north-end police headquarters in Montreal on Thursday, November 1, 2012. Several police agencies targeted a vast drug network across Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia.